The gesture caught the attention of Damian Trujillo, an NBC Bay Area reporter, who snapped a photo of the gesture from the stands, and Lenny Herold, who was also in the stands. The photos show a brunette cheerleader taking a knee as her fellow Gold Rush cheerleaders stand in uniform poses. While it’s unclear what her motives were, the unidentified cheerleader’s act of taking a knee mirrors the ongoing NFL protests started by former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

When BioWare’s Anthem launches next year, player-characters won’t be locked into single classes thanks to the ability to switch between different Javelins (exo-suits), each of which fills a traditional RPG class. But that doesn’t mean each player will be restricted to having a single character.

In a tweet yesterday, Anthem Executive Producer Mark Darrah confirmed that players will be allowed to have multiple pilots, known as “Freelancers,” on the same account. Darrah later confirmed that there will likely be a limit to how many additional Freelancers each player can have, but he doesn’t know what that limit will be.

Flag & Anthem, a men’s casualwear start-up brand, has collaborated with Ford Motor Co. on a special capsule collection for fall that celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Ford truck.
The line includes four distressed trucker hats with custom Ford patches, seven graphic short-sleeve T-shirts with original hand-painted artwork, four heritage raglan long-sleeve Ts, and three workwear-inspired patchwork jackets and button-down shirts. Prices range from $ 24.50 to $ 119.50.
The Flag & Anthem x Ford line is available exclusively at select Dillard’s stores as well as on the Dillard’s and Flag & Anthem web sites.
Azod Mohit, Flag & Anthem’s cofounder, said, “Ford is an original, iconic American brand, and we are excited to debut our collection to celebrate the history of the Ford Truck. Much of the Flag & Anthem collection is vintage-inspired, so the chance to access the Ford archives was incredible. Each piece we designed is nostalgic, while remaining current.”
The collaboration includes a marketing campaign that was shot at the Highland Park Ford plant in northwest Detroit by photographer Nigel Barker, who is also Flag & Anthem’s artistic director.
“As soon as I heard we were doing a collaboration with Ford I knew we had to shoot in Detroit. There is such

Anthem Inc. said it will pull out of the Affordable Care Act health-insurance exchange in Ohio next year, a move that likely will leave at least 18 counties in the state with no available ACA marketplace plans.WSJ.com: US Business

Anthem Inc. said it would finally give up on its ill-starred deal for Cigna Corp., setting the stage for a rancorous court battle between the companies over billions in potential damages.WSJ.com: US Business

In a viral video created by dog product subscription service Bark Box, two proud doggo moms ― MCs T-Spoon and ZZtophalf ― spit some lines about what it means to be a true provider for your pup. Some choice lyrics?

“Went to the vet ‘cause her poop was volcanic // We put her on a diet now that shit is organic.”

Anthem said it would petition the Supreme Court to review the antitrust rulings blocking its acquisition of Cigna, a long-shot bid to revive a $ 48 billion deal amid litigation between the two companies.WSJ.com: US Business

On Monday, Underwood ― who’s married to Nashville Predators captain Mike Fisher ― surprised hockey fans with a beautiful rendition of the national anthem before game three of the NHL playoffs when Fisher’s team played the Chicago Blackhawks at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.

Underwood shared a similar sentiment, writing, “Six years ago today, I said ‘I do,’ to this handsome fella. I meant it then and I mean it now. God put us together and continues to bless our marriage. I couldn’t imagine this life without you.”

If you love musicals and are gearing up for Passover, then look no further for your seder-prep pump up song.

Jewish a cappella group Y-Studs is celebrating “that day when the entire Jewish nation puts their bread away” with a Passover-themed cover of “Another Day of Sun,” the opening song from the 2016 musical “La La Land.”

Passover, which falls between April 10-18 this year, is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt. Over the course of the eight-day festival, many Jews partake in a seder dinner ― a ritual meal marked by an assortment of symbolic foods, songs and stories.

For their song and accompanying video, Y-Studs focused on the preparation that goes into hosting a seder meal. Staged at a supermarket, the singers grab matzah, wine and other foods frequently found on the Passover table as they belt out the theatrical number.

“Grab a cart/there’s matzah left and right/and all the kinds of wine you like/and when the sun goes down/our families gather ‘round/a people so renowned/and it’s how Passover is done.”

Check out Y-Studs’ “La La Passover” below:

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Ten days after declaring war is a lousy time for a party, let alone a Super Bowl.

On Jan. 17, 1991, an armed coalition led by the United States commenced Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf, marking the first major military action of the post-terrorism age. Less than two weeks later, the New York Giants and the Buffalo Bills prepared for their own conflict as Super Bowl XXV kicked off in Tampa, Florida. Fears that Saddam Hussein would target this, the most American of sporting events, led some NFL officials to consider rescheduling. The big game would proceed as planned, but the festive mood of Jan. 27 was damped by the grim realities of a world at war.

Goodyear’s iconic blimp was grounded, and in its place flew Black Hawk air patrol. Instead of tailgate barbecues, the Tampa Stadium parking lot was crammed with concrete barriers and chain-link fences. Machine-gun wielding SWAT teams patrolled the roof of the arena while ushers carried metal detector wands down below. The mood wasn’t much brighter in the locker rooms. “Players were discussing privately if there would be a draft,” former Giants tight end Howard Cross later told the New York Post. “And whether our younger brothers might be drafted.”

It was into this tense, foreboding atmosphere that Whitney Houston strode onto the 50-yard line in a casual white tracksuit with red and blue stripes and matching white sneakers. With her dark ringlets pulled back in a wide headband, the 27-year-old looked more like an Olympian than the bonafide pop star who had scored back-to-back No. 1s the previous year with “I’m Your Baby Tonight” and “All the Man That I Need.”

She was there to open the game by singing the national anthem, Francis Scott Key’s “Star-Spangled Banner.” The tradition seemed charmingly quaint given the dire circumstances. “It was an intense time for a country,” Houston remembered in 2000. “A lot of our daughters and sons were overseas fighting. I could see, in the stadium, I could see the fear, the hope, the intensity, the prayers going up. And I just felt, ‘This is the moment.’”

The moment became the most famous of her career. Armed with no more than a song, Houston galvanized an uncertain nation.

Shortly after her performance was announced on Nov. 6, 1990—Election Day—Houston conferred with her longtime musical director Ricky Minor about the best way to wring every drop of passion and emotion from the ubiquitous tune. She spoke highly of a version sung by Marvin Gaye at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game, a soulful, stripped down rendition backed by an electric drum machine.

Minor tracked down a VHS tape of Gaye’s performance—not an easy task in the pre-YouTube-era—and studied it closely to find elements he could incorporate in his own arrangement. After careful analysis, he decided to take the unorthodox approach of changing the anthem’s time signature. “The original version is in 3/4 time, which is more like a waltz,” Minor explained to ABC News in 2012. “What we tried to do was to put it in 4/4 meter… We wanted to give her a chance to phrase it in such a way that she would be able to take her time and really express the meaning.” Slowing the tempo would give Houston a chance to eke out each subtle nuance of every lyric.

The demands of a live television broadcast coupled with the challenges of an outdoor performance proved too much of a liability for event organizers. To ensure a flawless rendition, producers had to get creative. “NFL policy is that when they have a performer singing the national anthem for live TV, they request the performer record what they call a protection copy, just in case the singer has laryngitis, the day of the Super Bowl,” Houston’s publicist, Regina Brown, explained to JET in 1991.

After recording the instrumental backing track with the Florida Orchestra in early January, Minor sent a copy to Houston to allow her to practice. As it happened, she never did. “I was busy doing a screen test for a film with Kevin Costner,” was her excuse when she met up with Minor in a Miami studio two weeks prior to the Super Bowl. But she was a quick study. After listening to the track only once, she walked into the vocal booth and belted the version that would mesmerize millions across the globe “Amazingly, it was done in one take,” NFL executive Jim Steeg confirmed to SportsBusinessDaily.com. “All was in place for what many of us thought would be one of the greatest versions of the national anthem ever performed.”

Not everyone was impressed. Some NFL officials were less than pleased by what they saw as a radical reimagining of a cherished piece of Americana “They thought the harmonies were too different, that it was sacrilegious,” Minor told USA Today. Just days before the broadcast, NFL brass placed a call to Houston’s father and manager, John, begging him to force the singer to record a new version. “The conversation was brief,” Steeg told ESPN.com. “There would be no rerecording.”

Houston was surprisingly grounded when Super Bowl Sunday finally arrived. “It wasn’t a lot of hype going in,” her brother, Gary, later told EW. “She was like a little girl going into a football game — not really understanding the magnitude of this game. But she was very excited, like, ‘Isn’t this great?’” Seventy-four thousand sports fans filled Tampa Stadium, adding to an estimated 115 million watching on television. For the first time the game was broadcast internationally, allowing troops stationed across the globe to tune in. The performance would be for them.

It’s been said that Houston lip-synced “The Star-Spangled Banner” on this day, but that’s not entirely fair. Even while the tape played she sang her heart out, pouring her inimitable voice into a dead microphone. The only ones could who could hear her magnificent artistry truly live that day were servicemen and women, representing all branches of the armed forces, bearing the colors of each of the 50 states, gathered before her on the field.

For the rest of us, the grand unveiling of Houston’s stunning interpretation was nothing short of a revelation. “Whitney was at the height of her vocal powers, and her performance of the song was electrifying,” Houston’s label head and industry icon Clive Davis wrote in his 2013 memoir, The Soundtrack of My Life. “It was soulful, passionate, supremely confident, and rousing.” As she hit the final climactic high note—an E-flat above middle C—on the word “free,” four F-16 fighter jets performed a ceremonial fly-by in the skies above. “It was a moment of unforgettable drama and pride,” writes Davis.

Only a genius could take a song that, by design, belongs to all citizens, and make it her own. Make no mistake; this was not a selfish act, but a selfless one. The African-American community has had a troubled relationship to “The Star-Spangled Banner” dating back to more than a century before Colin Kaepernick. “The machinery of state violence has too often been used against black people for a song about bombs and rockets to hold much appeal,” writes journalist and screenwriter Cinque Henderson in the New Yorker. The NAACP named James Weldon Johnson’s poem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” as the “Black National Anthem” in 1919, and even Martin Luther King preferred “My Country, Tis of Thee.”

On Jan. 27, 1991, Houston, a strong, confident, supremely talented black woman took back the national anthem and made it speak for all Americans.

The primary role of an artist is to reflect and articulate the mood and feeling of those unable or unwilling to express these complex emotions for themselves. When she sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Houston succeeded like few have, before or since. “It was a time when Americans needed to believe in our country.” Houston reflected in an interview with PEOPLE shortly after the event. “I remember standing there and looking at all those people, and it was like I could see in their faces the hopes and prayers and fears of the entire country.”

To many, the song outshone the outcome of the game (the Giants beat the Bills 20 to 19). The response was so overwhelming that Arista Records took the unprecedented step of releasing the version as a single just a few weeks later. It became the fastest-selling song in the label’s history up to that point, climbing to No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100. Houston donated her portion of the proceeds to charities supporting soldiers and families involved in the Persian Gulf War.

When the worst fears of Super Bowl XXV became reality a decade later on September 11th, Houston’s anthem once again served as a rallying cry. It was re-released to raise funds for firefighters and victims of the terrorist attacks. This time it peaked at No. 6, making Houston the only artist to take “The Star-Spangled Banner” into the Billboard Top 10. It would be her final trip to the top of the charts.

Connie Lim (aka as MILCK) interprets the word behind “Quiet,” the song who reached the hearts of millions at the Women’s March.Allure
From an oversized sweater to a classic blazer, here are some of our favorite Zara staples that you can just about keep forever.AllureMillionaireMatch.com – the best dating site for sexy, successful singles!

As the dark shadow of a Trump Presidential era edges closer, here is a song to inspire some rebellion. Gary Stockdale and I wrote it; that’s him performing in the video, with Steve Postell, Scott Breadman, and Jennifer Leitham at Sit ‘n Spin’s 2016 holiday show, produced by Maggie Rowe. Introducing the song are Keith Blaney, Mary Elizabeth Williams-Villano, B. Mark Seabrooks, and myself. Enjoy…bigly!

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Nigel Barker is putting his weight behind a new men’s wear brand founded by former Macy’s and Lord & Taylor buyers Azod Mohit and Brad Gartman, who helped grow the men’s business for brands including American Rag and INC.
The photographer will invest in the brand and has been named artistic director. Barker, who also invests in the buzzy Meatpacking District gym The Dogpound, was connected to Mohit and Gartman through a friend who is a part of Barker’s workout group at The Dogpound.
“I’ve never endorsed or gotten behind a specific brand in this kind of capacity ever in my history,” Barker told WWD. “But when I walked into the showroom I immediately had a reaction and thought these are exactly the kind of clothes that guys want to wear.”
Mohit and Gartman, who will preview the spring line at Project in Las Vegas this week, believed there was a gap in the market for men leaving college who have graduated from teen specialty stores but can’t afford aspirational brands and have no interest in traditional men’s wear brands.
“This customer wants a bit of an edge. He wants a fit that’s more tailored and athletic and he wants price points that are digestible

When you invite Maya Rudolph to be your commencement speaker, you can’t expect just a typical speech. Rudolph brought it out at Tulane University’s commencement on Saturday, giving a hysterically inspiring address before doing her own unique interpretation of the National Anthem.

“It really is a true honor to be with all of you as you begin this new phase of your life,” Rudolph told graduates, “as you embark on this exciting and challenging journey of being sober during the day.”

It was the first of many jokes throughout the speech, which included an Oprah imitation (“YOU get a diploma!”) and an extended explanation of her alleged procrastination to write the speech.

Rudolph talked about her telling her father — a Tulane grad — that she wanted to be on Saturday Night Live when she graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She went through improv classes and learned the classic rule: to any situation, say “yes, and.”

“Say yes, and,” Rudolph said as advice to the graduates. “Create your own destiny. Hold onto your old friends. Kiss your mama. Admit what your dreams are. Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t know what you’re gonna do tomorrow, but work hard and don’t be lazy. And put away your damn iPhone once in a while.”

To end her speech, she asked graduates to stand. Taking advantage of her time on a mic in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, she sang a ridiculous national anthem — with a bit of Beyonce mixed in.

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In 2002, at the tender age of 12, Swift — decked out in an American flag blouse and red accessories — took to the court before a Detroit Pistons and Philadelphia 76ers game in Philadelphia to belt out the national anthem. A cappella, no less.

The video of Swift’s cherubic performance has been making the rounds on the Internet this week, inducing major “awwws” everywhere. (Watch the throwback clip above.)

T. Swift-related nostalgia has been plentiful in recent days. Just last week, to celebrate the success of her new album “1989,” the 24-year-old star posted a photograph of her 12-year-old self on Instagram.